Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A27246
|
A sermon preached in S. Lawrence-Jewry Church on the fifth of November, Anno Dom. 1678 by Joseph Bedle ...
|
Bedle, Joseph, 1644 or 5-1692.
|
1679
(1679)
|
Wing B1675; ESTC R19388
|
10,966
|
31
|
deliverance and it is marvellous in our Eyes Bless then that God that blasted this Plot and brought this Design to nought They designed to have blown up the King to have taken away the life of the Lords anointed which accursed Principle and most horrid attempt is contrary to the Law of God the Law of the Nation and to common Reason 1. The Law of God says thus Curse not the King no not in thy thought Curse not the rich in thy Bed-Chamber for a Bird of the Air shall carry the Voice and that which hath Wings shall tell the matter Eccles 10.20 The Apostle teacheth us thus Let every Soul be subject to the higher powers for there is no power but of God whosoever therefore resists the Power resists the Ordinance of God and shall receive to themselves damnation Rom. 13.1 2. Let every Soul of what rank or quality soever every Soul of what faith and perswasion soever And it follows whoever resists shall receive to himself damnation In which Words it's very plain That it 's upon no account whatever lawful either upon corruption in principle or practice to rebell against much less to depose the Supreme Magistrate And to confirm men in this Principle I have these two things to offer to their consideration First 't is very remarkable That those for whom the Gospel presseth subjection and obedience were Enemies to the Cross of Christ implacable Adversaries to his Person Doctrine and Government Could this Doctrine of subjection to wicked and Atheistical Princes and Emperours have been laid aside our Saviour and his Apostles had easily avoided those Persecutions and fiery Tryals which they met with upon the account of their Doctrine and the holiness of their lives If Heresie or Corruption in Manners had been sufficient Cause for the deposing of Princes as the Romanists assert you would not have had so long a Roll of Martyrs to run over as now you have Our Saviour was able to have defended his own Cause by his own Power but how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled But farther I desire you to reflect upon a remarkable passage in the Gospel relating to this purpose 'T is in the case of Herod the King When he heard that Jesus was born King of the Jews he was troubled and then no question of it but agreed upon his destruction though 't was cunningly blinded with a zealous pretence of worshiping him Thus he pretends to the wise-men Go and search diligently for the young Child and when ye have found him come and tell me that I may worship him also But the wise-men being warned of God that they should not return they departed into their own Country another way Now when Herod saw he was mocked of the wise-men he was exceeding wroth and sent forth and slew all the Children that were in Bethlehem and in all the Coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise-men Now what a miserable case was this you can conceive of little less than Lamentations weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her Children and would not be comforted because they are not for what 's more dear to a Father the Father loves his Child because 't is his Image and if he hath never so many he knows not which to part with for some reason or other he loves them all Therefore to be deprived of them all and that at once is a sore affliction 't is too hard a saying who can bear it to be bereaved of our Children by the common Infirmities and Diseases that attend Mankind is a great affliction to a good man for by this he 's dismembred as a Tree whose Branches are lopt off and by such losses whilst he lives he sees part of himself turn to corruption But to have them all butchered so barbarously and inhumanly murther'd Poor innocent Babes what had they done that they must fall by so fatal and cruel a stroke The thoughts of this certainly was terrible and if any thing would have exasperated the people and enraged the Multitude this would have done it and the people swelling with envy would have burst into publick hostility and open Rebellion But yet this Divine story acquaints us with no such thing the Arrows of Divine Justice and Vengeance though they fly not so swift as we would have them yet they will certainly wound the heart of the bloody and deceitful man though they be not sharpened and winged by the rage of a mad-headed Multitude 't is evidently the design of the Gospel to press obedience to Magistrates tho they were Heathens and Tyrants much more are we obliged to obey Christian Monarchs those that are merciful and good such as by the mercy of God we now live under long may we do so notwithstanding all the Plots and Conspiracies of the Jesuits to destroy the Lords Anointed which is contrary I am sure to the Rules of the Gospel and the Doctrine of our Saviour 2. 'T is contrary to the Law of the Nation as you are Subjects you are obliged to honour and obey your King this is a Law of your own making made by your Representatives in Parliament and so ye are bound to stand to your own Act and Deed every honest man will be I 'm sure as good as his word and stand to his promise 3. It 's contrary to common Reason This is the first Commandment with promise Honour your Father and your Mother we in our sphere expect duty from our Children and obedience from our Servants I hope then the Father of the Country may come in for a share Those Principles that own the murdering of Kings and deposing of Princes cannot be of God neither can those men be Christs Disciples that would reduce these Principles into practice seeing he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them Behold then the Villany of this days Conspiracy they would have destroyed the Lords Anointed blown up the two Houses of Parliament the Representatives of the whole Nation the Church and State too and that at one blow They would not allow the Honourable Peers of the Realm the worthy and brave Gentry the Pious Learned and Loyal Clergy the least time to prepare for another World They had no respect to the Souls of men But blessed be God they were prevented Let the Patrons of their Principles turn it off as well as they can and say 't was only the Plot of some unfortunate Gentlemen we 'll give them the hearing of it However 't was well for us they were unfortunate had they succeeded they would have had greater Titles conferr'd upon them success would have made so great Villany have pass'd for Virtue Witness the honour and esteem that Father Garnet is in to this day in the Church of Rome for the generous attempt made on this day If I should instance in the horrid Murder committed upon the Body of Henry the Third of France you will find the Pope admiring and commending the Person and the Fact too and dares before Witnesses enough compare it with the miracle of our Saviour's Incarnation and had the design of this day taken effect no question but it would have been as great and as generous in their thoughts and determinations But blessed be God the snare was broken and we were delivered they were taken in their own craftiness Faux could not escape who was so wickedly insolent as to say had he been within the house as he was without he would not have failed to have blown them up house and all But blessed be God he was apprehended and the rest either slain or taken Prisoners And now having told you what you are to bless God for let me tell you in a word how and so conclude First Bless God for the Deliverance from this horrible Conspiracy and that so as you grow more and more in love with the true ancient Catholick and Apostolick Faith represented often to you under the Name of the Protestant Religion it 's not enough to bless God with our lips unless we praise him with our lives he that orders his Conversation aright praiseth God best and you cannot do it better than by a zealous contending for the Faith once deliver'd to the Saints Secondly So bless God that every day you grow into detestation and hatred of those Principles that allow such bloody Practices If I should say the Romish Religion is a Religion whose Faith is Faction and whose Zeal is Rebellion 't is no more than may be proved 'T is a Religion that deposeth Kings blows up Parliaments changeth Governments It 's an argument of an ill Cause that must be managed by blood and treachery It 's a Religion that holds the Pope hath Power over Foreign Princes a Religion that sets Kingdom against Kingdom the Father against the Son and the Son against the Father Thirdly So bless God as that we pray to God to deliver us still from all such bloody Attemps and horrible Conspiracies They are never weary of plotting mischief we have fresh and new arguments which tell us what they would have had and yet desire And this late Plot against his Majesty's most sacred Person and Government in many Circumstances far exceeding that of this day should oblige us to be more constant and fervent in our united Prayers for our Preservation We must either not understand or else not love the Religion we own and profess to be true if we are not as diligent to preserve it as the Enemy is to undermine subvert and destroy it I am sure the Psalmist determines to practise what I recommend to you I will call upon the Name of the Lord who is worthy to be praised so shall I be saved from my Enemies Psal 18.3 Let us imitate this great and good man a King and Prophet too yea let us pray that as the Enemies of the Lord and his Church make a pit and dig it so they may again fall into the ditch that they have made And to this let all the People say Amen and Amen FINIS
they feared for the days came upon her that her Enemies cast a Trench about her and compassed her round and kept her in on every side and laid her even with the Ground and they left not in her one Stone upon another because she knew not the time of her Visitation St. Luke 19.43 44. Thus Roderick King of Spain to secure himself against the lawful Prince whom he had deposed dismounted all the strong-holds unburthen'd the Castles disarm'd the people which turn'd to his own ruin this indeed strengthened him against Domestick Commotions but not Forreign Invasions for the Moors soon after overthrew him and in few Months conquered Spain My Text tells you They fell into the Ditch which they made Thus Haman is hanged on the same Gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai And this Text is litterally fulfilled in our Ears this day For thus it happened to these wicked Conspirators that which they designed to have been the ruin of the King the Royal Issue the Nobles the Clergy and Gentry of the Land was the destruction of themselves for two of them being drying of a pound of Powder in the Chimney-Corner on a sudden a Spark of Fire flew into it and they were miserably battered by their own Engin you might at that time have read their Sin in the Glass of their punishment they hate a lingring death they are for a speedy ruine so sudden a mischief happens to themselves VSE I. All which demonstrates the Lord to be most wise and merciful powerful and just 1. Most wise The Lord is known by the Judgment which he executeth the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands God will not lose the Glory of any of his Attributes therefore God takes them thus that he may be known to be wiser than the wisest as the Apostle hath expressed it Oh the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God how unsearchable are his Judgments and his Ways past sinding out He is said to take the wise in their own craftiness when they are in the highest and most sublime Counsels He doth not stay till they begin to doat and to do weakly and then takes them but he befools them in the heighth of Wit and in the depth of Carnal Policy when like Achitophel they give Counsel like the Oracles of God 2. This demonstrates the Lord to be most merciful that will deliver his people at such a time The needy shall not always be forgotten the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever He saveth the poor from their Sword from their mouth and from the hand of the mighty so the poor hath hope and iniquity stoppeth her mouth Job 5.15 16. 3. This also vindicates his Power Helets them alone till their Plot comes to maturity and they were upon executing of it and then he brings all to light and nought This does he at this time and not before for the greater manifestation of his Power As Christ deferr'd to come to Lazarus till he had been dead four days Now our Saviour did not defer to come because he loved him not for he wept bitterly insomuch that the Jews could say See how he loves him If our Saviour had relieved him presently the Jews would have said he was not dead and that our Saviour had only awakened him out of Sleep but having been dead four days and beginning to stink then for Christ to raise him this was for the Glory of the Son of God To restrain the Sinner in his height to cross the Counsels of Wicked men and to ruin them by their own Devices bespeaks God to be very great If one man prevails against another 't is through errour they take them by some advantage because they err in their Counsels most successes of men are made out of the defects of their Adversaries but the Lord is able to confound his Enemies after the most deliberate and great Debates the choisest and best-grounded Resolves as the Apostle says The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men 1 Cor. 1.25 Lastly This speaks God to be very just that he will thus pay the Sinner home in his own kind in that he causeth their mischiefs to light upon their own head and their violent dealing upon their own pates in tumbling them into the Pit they have made for others Thus justly was Adonibezeck requited thus he tells you himself As I have done so God hath requited me Judges 1.7 VSE II. 2. This speaks the case of all the Enemies of Gods Church to be very miserable they are wise only to do evil they dig pits and lay snares and say who see them Let such know that God will not only disappoint them but take them in their own craftiness Now it 's a great trouble to wicked men that they are prevented and cannot do that mischief they intend to others but it is a greater vexation when their counsels recoil upon them and wound themselves when their own plots and projects promote their own ruine when their own actions effect that which they had rather dye than live to see done when that mischief falls on their own heads which they intended for others how doth this aggravate their sorrows How will they be able to bear it to see themselves accessary to their own ruine This must needs wound their souls to think they have blasted their own Estates blemished their own Names ruin'd their Posterity set fire to their own Houses with their own hands this aggravates the misery when a man falls by his own hand self-murther is the most bloody of all murthers surely this then must needs be a great terrour to these wicked Conspirators to think they had plotted and worked so long to destroy themselves for thus you see it happened They made a Pit and digged it and fell into the Ditch which they made VSE III. Since God preserves his Church and turns the Conspiracies of wicked men to their own detriment ruin and destruction as he did this day Let us return Praise and Glory to God this is the business of the day 't is its proper work If they had had their Ends they would have been singing long before this Jam seges est ubi Troja fuit And shall not we rejoyce at our own preservation Bless then and praise the name of the Lord I 'll tell you for what and how First That God did discover this Plot and brought their Deeds of Darkness to light that after they had travelled with mischief many years and brought their Design within few hours of its Execution that then it should be brought to nought Faux at the dead time of the Night with his Dark Lanthorn ready to blow up his Myne was discovered taken and that strangely all was miraculously discovered by a few obscure Lines which being brought to the King he truly interpreted them the Lord made him the happy Instrument of this great